"Drinking Song" by Longfellow

Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow, supernal
As the forehead of Apollo,
And possessing youth eternal.

Round about him fair Bacchantes,
Bearing cymbals, flutes and thyrses,
Wild from Naxian groves of Zantes
Vineyards, sing delirious verses.

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"Evoe!" by Edith M. Thomas

"Many are the wand-bearers, few are the true Bacchanals."

Many are the wand bearers;
Their windy shouts I hear,
Along the hillside vineyard,
And where the wine runs clear;
They show the vine-leaf chaplet,
The ivy-wreathen spear;
But the god, the true Iacchus,
He does not hold them dear.

Many are the wand bearers;
And bravely are they clad;
Yes, they have all the tokens
His early lovers had.
They sing the master passions;
Themselves unsad, unglad;
And the god, the true Iacchus,
He knows they are not mad!

Many are the wand bearers;
The fawn-bright skin they wear;
There are among them maenads
That rave with unbound hair.
They toss the harmless firebrand-
It spends itself in air;
And the god, the true Iacchus,
He smiles - and does not care.

Many are the wand bearers
And who (ye ask) am I?
One who was born in madness,
"Evoe!" my first cry-
Who dares, before your spear-points,
To challenge and defy;
And the god, the true Iacchus,
So keep me till I die!

Many are the wand bearers;
I bear with me no sign;
Yet, I was mad, was drunken,
Ere yet I tasted wine;
Nor bleeding grape can slacken
The thirst wherewith I pine;
And the god, the true Iacchus,
Hears now this song of mine.

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"The Greater Dionysia" by Louise Burton Laidlaw

Is Dionysus dead?
No! still his essences inviolate
All that is bleak and dull annihilate.
For ages men have bade him bow his head,
Imprisoned in the vicious vats of earth;
Today he has regained his godly height,
And true immortals, radiant with delight,
Revel again in Dionysian mirth.

Is Dionysus dead?
No! volatile and gay and free he stands -
Free to dispense the vintage of his hands,
To waken summer with his buoyant tread,
To flood fall sunsets full of lambent wine,
With nature's ripe exuberance again
To play blithe havoc in the hearts of men
Until their passions soar above his shrine.

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